page_title: Agape feast
hierarchical_section_title: Agape feast
caption_attribution_description: English: The image depicts a w:lovefeast being celebrated at Bethania Moravian Church in North Carolina.
context_page_description: An agape feast or lovefeast is a communal meal shared among Christians. The name comes from agape, a Greek term for 'love' in its broadest sense. The plural agapae or agapæ has been used by itself in reference to lovefeasts, but is ambiguous, as it can also mean funerary gatherings.
  The lovefeast custom originated in the early Church and was a time of fellowship for believers. The Eucharist was often a part of the lovefeast, although at some point, the two became separate. Thus, in modern times the Lovefeast refers to a Christian ritual meal distinct from the Lord's Supper. The lovefeast seeks to strengthen the bonds and the spirit of harmony, goodwill, and congeniality, as well as to forgive past disputes and instead love one another.
  The practice of the lovefeast is mentioned in Jude 1:12 of the Christian Bible and was a "common meal of the early church".
context_section_description: An agape feast or lovefeast (also spelled love feast or love-feast, sometimes capitalized) is a communal meal shared among Christians. The name comes from agape, a Greek term for 'love' in its broadest sense. The plural agapae or agapæ has been used by itself in reference to lovefeasts, but is ambiguous, as it can also mean funerary gatherings.
  The lovefeast custom originated in the early Church and was a time of fellowship for believers. The Eucharist was often a part of the lovefeast, although at some point (probably between the latter part of the 1st century AD and 250 AD), the two became separate. Thus, in modern times the Lovefeast refers to a Christian ritual meal distinct from the Lord's Supper. The lovefeast seeks to strengthen the bonds and the spirit of harmony, goodwill, and congeniality, as well as to forgive past disputes and instead love one another.
  The practice of the lovefeast is mentioned in Jude 1:12 of the Christian Bible and was a "common meal of the early church". References to communal meals are discerned in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34, in Saint Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Smyrnaeans, where the term agape is used, and in a letter from Pliny the Younger to Trajan, (ca. 111 A.D.) in which he reported that the Christians, after having met "on a stated day" in the early morning to "address a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity", later in the day would "reassemble, to eat in common a harmless meal". Similar communal meals are attested also in the Apostolic tradition often attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, who does not use the term agape, and in works of Tertullian, who does. The connection between such substantial meals and the Eucharist had virtually ceased by the time of Cyprian (died 258), when the Eucharist was celebrated with fasting in the morning and the agape in the evening. The Synod of Gangra in 340 makes mention of lovefeasts in relation to a heretic who had barred his followers from attending them.
  Though still mentioned in the Quinisext Council of 692, the agape fell into disuse soon after, except among the churches in Ethiopia and India. At the end of the 18th century the Carmelite friar Paolino da San Bartolomeo reported that the ancient Saint Thomas Christians of India still celebrated the lovefeast, using their typical dish called appam. In addition, Radical Pietist groups originating in the eighteenth-century, such as the Schwarzenau Brethren and the Moravian Church, celebrate the lovefeast. Methodist churches also continue the practice.
  The practice has been revived more recently among other groups, including Anglicans, as well as the American house church movement. The modern lovefeast has often been used in ecumenical settings, such as between Methodists and Anglicans.
caption: A Moravian diener serves bread to fellow members of her congregation during the celebration of a lovefeast.
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